Under the Poppy (49 page)

I’m afraid that won’t suit. Shall I step up myself, and see if he’s in his rooms? Achille, you’ll excuse us, now.

No, sir,
from Pinky there at my side, agitated and too loud—they’ve no sense of trouble, these toff boys, but is that their fault? And frightened or not, he stood his ground like a trooper.
I do beg your pardon, sir, but I’m here just now to visit with Miss Bell.

Truly? Well, you wouldn’t be the first young fellow who did. I recall she was a favorite of my sergeant’s, he said she gave rare value for the price.
And he smiled then, a smile that put me back into the Poppy and the war, the soldiers—his soldiers—grubbing and grasping as you passed, that boy with the mad eyes and the stolen ring—
Stuck on a knuckle, judy, so I took finger ’n all!
And his bravo laughed a little, as if he had been right about me from the start.

Pinky looked at me, I felt it, felt the color burn in my face but
I recall you, too, sir,
I said, and I stepped up to the General, I stepped so near I could smell the bay rum on his cheeks.
I told you true, Mister Rupert’s not here, so you may give your message to me. Or you can walk out, sir. It’s yours to decide.

The stage seemed very small, the two of us so close together, like we were players acting out a scene. I swear I did not know what I would do, if he made to go upstairs, where that safe is, or if his bravo tried some move—I can’t guess how Pinky would fare in a close-up brawl! He was pale enough with the threat he got—
Your father will be most unhappy, Achille, he mislikes disobedience almost as much as I
—but it’s he who saved me, I’ve no doubt of it at all. He’s a toff boy from a toff family, and the General well knows that. If it had been just Pimm and me, or I alone—

They left straightaway, then, the bravo turning back to spit on the floor, and Pinky dashing to bolt the door behind them, then crashing off into the pantry for water, or smelling salts, or who knows what, he brought back a cup of ice-cold tea and
Miss Bell!
all anxious-eyed, as if I might faint dead away.
Miss Bell, what a, what an extraordinary thing! Are you quite all right?

I took the tea, I made a smile—he’s used to frailer girls than I, that’s certain—and
Surely,
I said, but I didn’t meet his gaze straight-on. All around us was quiet, just the little scrabblings of the mice, and the carts and cabs outside, and our box for Jack as raw as any prop we ever fixed up at the Poppy….
Rare value for the price,
yes, I only did what I had to do, in the bed or on the stage. But I’m no more at the Poppy, whatever anyone may say. This is the Blackbird Theatre, and I am to be Missus Lucy Pimm.

Meanwhile Pinky was still a-stir, crossing back and forth, looking toward the door as if they might burst back in at any time, until
You’re acquainted with M. Georges,
he said, then stopped and flushed beet-red, as if he had done me a wrong. I looked him in the eye, then, and
That old boxed devil
, I said,
yes, I’ve seen him a time or two before.
And I rose for my hat and gloves, because word had to be given to Mme. de Metz: for Rupert, and for her messenger to Istvan, whoever that may be.

But Pinky stopped me—
Please, let me go for you, Miss Bell. You know I am your servant, whatever may happen.
And the look he gave me then was so dogged, and so true, I swear I felt Puggy there, smiling down on us both. Rare’s the theatre without a ghost, so may be Puggy is ours, and who better? I’d have him on the boards with me any time—the one who put me in a show to start with, who showed me all and everything he knew, and who perished in a tragedy brought about, yes, by this same General and his friends, these men to whom we’re naught but scenery on their stage. So I wrote up a note on the first scrap I found, and
Give this to Mme. de Metz,
I said to Pinky,
straight into her hands and no other’s. And be careful…. Leave the door unbolted, mind. Pimm will be back directly.

Off he jogged, and I sat right down with my sewing, to settle my mind: stitching on a doubled line of bells, gold and silver all a-jingle, it will make a merry sound on the Jack’s motley-cap. After a while I emptied out that sorry tea, and poured myself a jot of gin, to lift in toast to Puggy: with his bald head and wobbly French, his relish for the spangle and flash, Puggy who taught me that an exit can be an entrance, too. It all depends on where the audience is looking, and with a bit of tit or fire, you can make them gape wherever, and howsoever you please.

The morning’s rain feels almost Biblical, running through the spouts and gutters, floating what seems all of winter’s muck all at once through the streets already splashing and congested with the clash of black umbrellas, vendors hunched beside their awninged carts, cabs on every corner, a river of bodies heading in out of the wet. Everything is washed with gray, everything is sodden, though Mr. Arrowsmith notes with some admiration the bedraggled greens in the tall white vases at the townhouse—only Isobel would attempt a flower in this weather—while he raises his cane to knock—

—as the door swings open, on the butler and Benjamin: “Pardon,” the young man stepping back so Mr. Arrowsmith may enter. Mr. Arrowsmith offers his hand with his own apologies: “Pardon me, rather, I’m fairly damp just now. You’re bound out into the deluge, I see,” and apparently for longer than just the day’s rounds: now Mr. Arrowsmith notes the dark gripbag the butler holds, notes as well the young man’s marked pallor, the strong odor of liquor as “Yes,” says Benjamin, hat in hand. “I’m for Chatiens.”

“Ah? Safe travels, then. It’s a short journey, when loved ones await—”

“No,” rudely, but with a bitterness unconnected to Mr. Arrowsmith; he does not trouble to bow. He and the butler pass into the rain, to the carriage pulling up the drive, a man already waiting inside—while the saucy brown-haired maid approaches to close the door, to take Mr. Arrowsmith’s dripping hat, and conduct him to the east parlor where Madame waits, Madame rising when she sees him, offering her cheek: “Javier,” with a tired little smile. “You are so blessedly prompt.”

As promptly he sits beside her at the little table, takes a cup of tea, the hurried note she sent still tucked into his breast pocket, along with the scrap from Miss Bell, whose handwriting is somewhat scrambled, but the gist of the communiqué is clear: Georges has moved his counter, the round of play has begun. The timing may not be fortuitous—in Mr. Arrowsmith’s pocket lies another letter, from a colleague in the Urals, suggesting delay in all matters where Isidore is concerned,
The man is most unwell
—but things are as they are, the major actors are fairly in place, although “In my last missive from your father,” says Mr. Arrowsmith, lifting his cup, “he said nothing of Benjamin coming out to the country—?”

“He’s been asking for weeks,” says Isobel; this morning she looks her age and more, dry-eyed in a house gown riotous with peonies, another attempt to force a flourish where the ground is hard. Pushing aside her untouched teacup, she lights a cigarette, smokes a moment in silence. “Benny rarely reads his letters, but this time Helmut came especially to fetch him. I’d thought at first it was regarding the marriage—”

“Yes, I saw Guyon at the club. He’s quite delighted.”

“—but Helmut was so insistent…. And Benny is so—cheerless. Something else is amiss,” something dreadful that he will not tell her, as he will not say where M. Bok has gone, or why: sharing only his blackest humor, the drunken, echoing silence from his rooms, turning so viciously on her gentle inquiries—
Stop badgering, Belle! One more word and I’m in the river
—that in her own distress she must turn, alone again, to Javier.

At least Mr. Entwhistle has been jettisoned, with unexpected speed, in a scene both grating and comic; as if the day had not brought enough to carry…. Seeking as always the sanctuary of the greenhouse, trying to think what to do for Benny, trying not to worry for M. Bok, as she sadly, calmly trimmed and snipped, examining the canes, the nymph-rose just an amber stick, though in the summer it blooms like a wanton, petals as lush as a young girl’s kiss. The little shears felt cold in her hand, Axel’s gift from many years before:
From one servant of the garden to another, Miss
—old shears, very silver, very sharp.

Then up loomed Mr. Entwhistle, grim and grimly energetic, a sheaf of papers in his hand:
Mr. Rupert Bok—I have feared it exceedingly, and now I know. He is a criminal, Madame, a foul criminal! M. de Metz is in great peril.
Asking
How so?
without great interest redoubled Mr. Entwhistle’s outrage, the man was like a hayrick set alight:
How so! That Bok is—I cannot even speak of it, before a lady. He is
unnatural.
What he does with M. de Metz
—

How is it that you are so well-informed on M. Bok’s state of being? Or, for that matter, my brother’s?

This, Madame! These
—
infamous verses,
shaking Benny’s poems in her face.

She did not read them all, a sample was enough: the poems were very sweet, very silly, very damning.
That is a serious assertion. So serious it may well demand recourse—a duel, say. Would your rectitude rise to that challenge?
as the man’s martyr’s ardor flickered visibly, like a bonfire in a cold wind:
Dueling is against the law, Madame.

Yes, it is. Pack your traps directly, Mr. Entwhistle. I abhor cowardice.
A manservant escorted him out within the hour, rumpled and outraged as the head of John the Baptist, while she burned the poems in a yellow cachepot, along with a handful of crushed stems and dried petals, looking by rote for patterns in the ash:
See what the flowers tell you, child
—

—though she tells none of this, now, to Javier, sharing instead, in light of Hector’s visit to poor Miss Bell, a different tale, Mr. Arrowsmith astonished to learn at last of the lock-box letter: “Dusan himself gave you this information? Dusan has this document?” Recalling a quiet sitting room on Goldsmith Street, Georges on the ivory settee, turning his silver ring as he spoke of Vidor’s passing:
You say Redgrave found nothing in his rooms, or on his person?
Ah, but there was nothing left to find, was there, as Dusan was so clever! even while in real pain and disarray. One can almost share Hector’s disappointment at the loss of this courier: a player so nimble does indeed merit a broader stage. Now “I am more than pleased to learn this, Isobel—though it could have been told me sooner,” with not a little reproof. “And it must be kept very close between us, no one else must know—”

“Hector knows,” with a brittle smile she cannot check, her quiet recital of the Epiphany moment, while outside the rain continues to fall—

—as the carriage to Chatiens sways and gallops, making excellent time despite the weather. Helmut in a mackintosh pores over bills of lading and receipts, Benjamin in the opposite corner hunches over a bottle of whiskey, a bottle from which his
Maître
has drunk; if he closes his eyes, he can pretend to taste him there, try to drown the last moments between them. That hateful, fragile dawn, Rupert gone already from the bed, and he half-awake and reaching by rote for the key: and finding nothing. Unease, then fear, then panic as he tumbled naked to the floor, rooting through a mulch of half-made poems and books and broadsheets, oh God it must be here somewhere, he stripped it when he stripped his shirt—! All these weeks, he has been so careful—
Never lose it, never take it off
—

—putting, at last, his hand to its shape, almost laughing for sheer relief as he slipped the chain safely back about his neck: only then seeing Rupert, silent as a spirit at the door, how long had he been there, watching? And crossing to the bedside:
What is that? Let me see.

And then Rupert’s frown, a terrible frown that said in an instant everything that was to come, a side of him that Benjamin had never seen, remote and utterly resistless—that key, M. Dieudonne’s key, how did he come to have it?
Don’t lie to me, Benjamin. Don’t lie
—while he tried his best to dissemble, calling on all his skills as an actor, a lover, to hide what in the end he could not hide, while the black key dangled on its chain between them, like a puppet on slack strings—

Where is he? He gave you this, you must know where he is.

I swear to you
, Maître!
I would tell you if I did!

—while seeing, too, like a deadly blow, Rupert riven by the need to find M. Dieudonne, a living, driving need, a need he has never, ever shown for Benjamin: a love that finally brings the tale entire, he white-faced and naked, still, trying to hold onto Rupert’s cold hand but
All this time,
beside him on the bed, already gone forever.
You knew, and never told me. All this time.

But it was for you, you mustn’t—What was I to do? I gave my word!
the tears burning on his cheeks.
It was for you, all for you
—but no tears, no words could keep Rupert there, his
Maître
pulling on his coat, taking up his traveling case, gone in silence from the room and the house without one look behind him: as if their love did not matter, as if Benjamin did not matter, so nothing matters now, nothing, nor ever will again—

—as Benjamin takes another obliterating swallow, aims his blind gaze at the window once more. Helmut raises an eyebrow, but is wise enough to keep still, it is not his place to enquire. The old master, ill or not, will sort things out, and just in time, too, judging by the look of the young master, twisting on the seat as if on a red-hot brazier. What a pity, that one so gifted by fortune should prove instead such a wastrel and a fool—

—as Rupert, now bearing both keys, traveling case in hand, walks, as a traveler does, through the gush and spatter of the streets, boots wet, gaze set, heading for the Blackbird Theatre. The last day and night he spent in a lodging house, one of several clustered by the train station, trying to marshal his thoughts, to piece together what is known and what can be guessed, and decide what he must do next. After the first shock, Benjamin’s lie seems less dire: he was a tool, not an accomplice—though it was rash beyond belief for Istvan to entrust him with that key, if the General is in fact involved, and for what unguessable stakes? The key for the safe must mean the letter in the safe, Jesu he almost put the match to it…. God damn Istvan, for telling him nothing, for leaving him so entirely in the dark!
He said the key would keep you safe, he said Miss Bell knew all about it.
Lucy—Lucy plays on this stage as well, what else might she know? He will find that out within the hour.

He will find Istvan, too, indeed he will, if he is in this city at all, though Benjamin swore that no one knows precisely where he is, swore it with tears…. Benjamin. Yes, it is right to leave him, time to leave, especially if he is to marry; but he himself ought not have been so—harsh. He is used to Istvan’s vigor in combat, the boy just dwindled, like a leaf in flame…. Istvan, still in the city, in hiding, or in trouble? Or both at once? As reckless as any boy, yes…. Thinking of him all the long night past, there in the topmost room, how long since he has stayed at a place like that? Packed with men both noisy and furtive, up and down the stairs all night, the faintly sickly smell of unwashed bodies, splashed liquor, weariness and dust, and the hum and screech of the train arriving, the train departing, leaving behind more men to climb the stairs, to call to one another in German, in English, in pidgin French, in some music of a language Rupert had never heard before. He gave up on slumber, sat instead smoking and watching out the window as the rain swept in, swallowing the dawn as it swallows the noon, gray sheets like a scrim behind which anything might travel. I am a traveler, yes, did he not say so to Mme. de Metz? Belle, Benjamin calls her. He must send some word, to Belle, and to Benjamin, as soon as he speaks with Lucy, as soon as he finds Istvan…. Istvan, he would like very much to break his neck, more perhaps than ever before, and that is saying something. Save the show for the stage, oh, messire, there will be a merry reckoning! once Istvan has been brought to ground, once they are together, safe together, once again—